13 August 2020
President Trump on Thursday told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo that Democratic demands to fund mail-in voting and the U.S. Postal Service in ongoing coronavirus stimulus negotiations were a non-starter.
Why it matters: Trump directly linked Democrats' desired $3.6 billion for mail-in voting and $25 billion for the USPS to his continued baseless claims that increased mail-in voting will lead to widespread voter fraud.
- "Those are just two items. But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it," Trump said.
- He claimed the 2020 election could lead to "the greatest fraud in history."
- The president expressed similar feelings during his press briefing on Wednesday. "They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess. ... Are they going to do it even if they don’t have the money?" he said.
Worth noting: Fraud from mail-in voting has historically been rare, according to the Brennan Center, with Oregon — a state that votes primarily by mail — documenting only about a dozen cases of fraud out of more than 100 million ballots since 2000.
The big picture: While some states have moved to universal mail-in voting and others have expanded access amid the pandemic, the rules are different across the country.
- California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington and D.C. are automatically sending voters mail-in ballots.
- Other states may require voters to opt-in to vote early or require an excuse to vote absentee.
- Axios has launched an interactive resource, built on research by RepresentUs, a nonpartisan election reform group, to help voters across the country to get the information they need on how to vote.
The other side: Congressional Democrats wrote to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy this week, urging him not to issue new directives for handling election mail ahead of November's general election.
- "Many state deadlines allow voters to request absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots within a few days of Election Day, so it is vital that standard delivery times remain low and pricing remain consistent with past practices to which election officials and voters are accustomed," they said.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.